Closing Credit Cards

[bculp44]

Hi, I am hopeful someone can help me.  My wife has a credit card she has had for over 15 years and they rasied her APR to 18.99% because of the current economy.  The credit limit has not decreased and we currently do not carry a balance.  A card of mine was increased to 12.99% where we do carry a balance and I will be looking into doing a transfer. The credit line has not been decreased either.  

My question is, should I cancel either of these cards or just stay status quo and leave them open?  My card in question I have had for about 3-4 years.   My wife's card may actually be the one we do for the balance transfer as they seem to have the best offer of all of our cards right now.  But other than that, we don't plan on charging anything to these cards

[Anonymous]

Have you read this post:

Closing Credit Cards - by Fused

[Anonymous]

If you're not carrying balances on your cards, the APR doesn't matter at all. Keep the 15 year card (I'm assuming this is your longest standing open card?) forever, even if you don't use it much because of the raised rate. This will greatly help the length of your credit history, and in turn your score. If you do sideline cards because of increased rates, be sure to charge something small (a pepsi or a lotto ticket at the gas station, for example) every few months and then pay it off just so that you're showing use on the card so it doesn't get closed on it's own. If you can balance transfer off the younger card do so, but don't close that one either unless you have long established open accounts on your report as well.

[Anonymous]

I agree with Mank...don't close these cards. It's been my experience that the interest rates on rate jacked cards ( in my case Cap 1) return to normal or below eventually.

Just use them occaisionally and PIF!